Selkies is a women’s swim club for the Santa Barbara coast. Open water, every level, no egos. Just the sea, the swim, and good company.
Free · all swim levels welcome
We’re a group of women who love the water and like swimming it together. In the old stories a selkie pulls her sealskin back on and returns to the sea to be herself again. That’s the feeling we’re after. Come find yours.
We swim the Santa Barbara coast: coves, kelp, and the occasional curious seal.
Racers, returners, and first-timers. Swim hard or float and chat. Both count.
Come for the water, stay for the people. You always leave better than you arrived.
In the old folklore of Orkney and Shetland, a selkie is a woman of the sea who slips off her sealskin to come ashore. In the stories a man finds that skin and hides it away to keep her as his wife. Without it she stays, and is loved, but is never quite herself. The skin is her freedom, her own true nature, locked in someone else’s chest.
But the tales never end on land. Sooner or later she finds her skin, pulls it back on, and walks into the water, not running from her life, but returning to herself. We took the name for that: the belief that a woman can step into the sea and come out free.
“The sea didn’t take her. It gave her back to herself.”
We’re getting our first Santa Barbara group in the water now. Come as you are, wetsuit or not, fast or slow. The details live in the WhatsApp group, and we’d love to see you there.
The water’s better with company. Join the group and we’ll tell you where we’re swimming next.
Join the WhatsApp group